HPC Advisory Council and ISC Group Announce the 2018 Student Cluster Competition

The HPC Advisory Council (HPCAC), the community-led organization
dedicated to high-performance computing (HPC) research, outreach and
education, and the ISC Group, organizers of Europe’s premier HPC forum,
today announced that they have officially kicked off the ISC-HPCAC
Student Cluster Competition (SCC) with an open call for team entries
inviting international STEM student teams currently enrolled in
four-year higher education and undergraduate programs to submit
proposals for the 2018 competition. Submissions will be accepted through
November 10, 2017. The top twelve teams selected will be announced on
November 15, 2017 and face off in Frankfurt, Germany, during the annual
ISC High Performance Conference and Exhibition scheduled for June 24-28,
2018.

Now in its seventh year, the Student Cluster Competition enables
international teams to take part in a real-time contest focused on
advancing STEM disciplines and HPC skills development. To take home top
honors, the teams will have to showcase systems of their own design,
adhering to strict power constraints and achieve the highest performance
across a series of standard HPC benchmarks and applications.

Showcased at the conference’s closing plenary session, the intense
three-day competition will culminate in front of thousands of conference
attendees. Students will take center stage, alongside HPC luminaries,
for a live ceremony to award and recognize each of the participating
teams.

“The Student Cluster Competition provides a real-world hands-on
education that directly benefits students and their individual studies,”
noted Gilad Shainer, chairman of the HPC Advisory Council. “Team members
gain access to a wealth of industry expertise, training and tools and
hands-on exposure to a range of technologies and techniques they’ll use
for competition and throughout their careers. By helping advance their
knowledge and capabilities, the entire HPC community benefits.”

“SCC is an opportunity to contribute to the ISC tradition of supporting
education and our future workforce,” said Martin Meuer, co-chairman of
ISC High Performance. “All of our competitors have access to the full
conference and our student programs. This is our way of giving back to
the community, to the students, their current studies, and future
success. We look forward to welcoming the incoming teams and wish all of
the entries good luck.”

“Always fierce rivals in the heat of competition, teams establish peer
relationships and lifelong friendships. They’re basically building the
next generation of the HPC community,” said Pak Lui, principal architect
at Huawei Technologies. “That overall experience is an extremely
powerful influencer. It fuels the ongoing rivalries and the number of
entries submitted from established teams and in attracting entirely new
teams,” said the competitions veteran SCC director. “It’s the
combination of the individual student and teams total experience, their
combined contributions of ingenuity, unity and spirit that makes for
such a great competition and is what makes this SCC a world-class
championship.”

Visit the HPCAC’s 2018
Student Cluster Competition site for more detailed information and
criteria and to submit team entries. Preparation for competition
includes working with technology partners to design and build a
competitive system from commercially available components, and working
with advisors and mentors to master the HPC applications, tools,
techniques and tricks that are critical to a team’s overall performance
during the live competition.

Advocate the Future of HPC as a Sponsor of the ISC-HPCAC Student
Cluster Competition

Interested companies are urged to join the HPCAC and ISC Group in
ongoing support of STEM student development to further advance the
skills of these next generation HPC experts. Become a SCC sponsor.

Sponsor proceeds go to support student teams and all the costs
associated with the live competitions exclusively.

To unite in this visionary collaboration and help fulfill the growing,
global demand for STEM expertise a range of sponsor packages and
promotions are available including featured brand placements, social
media, media coverage and much more.

The ISC Group organizes ISC High Performance the world’s oldest and
Europe’s premier conference and networking event for the international
HPC community. The group’s portfolio includes the TOP500
site featuring the TOP500 List, which is updated twice a year and
provides a well-accepted metric for the 500 most powerful computer
systems in the world.

About ISC High Performance

The annual ISC High Performance conference series offer a comprehensive
five-day technical symposium focusing on HPC and R&D disciplines,
technological development and its application in scientific fields and
adoption in commercial environments.

About the HPC Advisory Council

Founded in 2008, the non-profit HPC Advisory Council (HPCAC) is an
international organization with over 400 members committed to education
and outreach. Members share expertise, lead special interest groups and
have access to the technology center to explore opportunities and
evangelize the benefits of HPC technologies, applications and future
development. The HPCAC hosts multiple annual conferences and STEM
challenges worldwide including the RDMA Student Competition in China and
the Student Cluster Competition in Germany. Membership is free of charge
and obligation. More information: www.hpcadvisorycouncil.com.